


a dark red love knot

by bokutoma



Series: tethras and halewell's tales of old [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, F/M, Songfic, Story within a Story, i mean i guess i could have said this was based on a poem since i read that first but, i'm not classy, i'm obsessed w celtic songs sue me, it's Story Time!, they're weirdly aware of other world states, whatever let me write about fenris as a stupid highwayman, who am I kidding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2019-10-29 06:29:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17802788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma
Summary: "He did not come in the dawning. He did not come at noon;And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon,When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor,A red-coat troop came marching—Marching—marching—King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door."





	1. the highwayman came riding

_Smarter men than me have said that time is not a line - rather, it's a tangled knot, full of the little yarn bits your mum used to bark at you for getting all over your clothes. These are the things that stick. The Champion's tale, the Fifth Blight...even our own Inquisition could be such a catching point._

_I've worked with Master Tethras to publish those folktales that seem to be such, based on the knowledge compiled by both magical and Chantry scholars. Though the names vary somewhat by culture and retellings, Master Tethras and I have done our best to find the titles that were most often used, even in alternate strands of time._

_I've also compiled a few songs, partially composed by me, in order to fully capture the spirit of the old tellings._

_Maker be at your side,_

** _Maryden Halewell_ **

* * *

_I've been a fan of Maryden's work since I first heard her play an original song in Haven. You never see a tavern quiet quite so quickly as when she's ready to debut a new song. Even the scathing ones have their audience, and I've seen many a person beg her to make them her next target._

_To each their own, I suppose._

_Now, however, I am overjoyed to be in the position to help with what might be her finest work to date._

_Those who have the pleasure of knowing me are well aware that I enjoy a good embellishment as much as the next wildly successful author, but I can promise you one thing about the stories to follow._

_Everything in them is the full, unmitigated truth._

_Probably._

** _Varric Tethras_ **

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: @bokutoma // @chellick
> 
> twitter: @deracinatin


	2. over the purple moor

_The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees // the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas_

* * *

_Aye, the story we have today is grim indeed; though the Nevarrans are the necromancers, no one is quite so in love with their own death as a Ferelden._

_Though Varric pens the tale with much more vigor, you've not seen a man so mournful as when a mercenary group gathers about the fire to sing of sweet Lila._

_Without further prompting, here is The Highwayman of Ferelden Old._

* * *

It was the Blessed Age, one where man was to rise and one where the success of man meant the success of Orlais. Ferelden chafed under its rulers, who lived so luxuriously when even their own royalty stomped about in the mud like street rats. Still, they were decades away from upheaval, and, at the time, no one could conceive of defeating men blessed by the Divine.

Instead, they rebelled how they could.

There was one among them that, could the inhuman Orlesians feel fear, they would flee in terror from: Fenrir, the Wolf of Crestwood.

They said he was soulless, that he was a Fade spirit perverted by the Orlesians to a demon of cruelty and bitter revenge. Some loved him and some loathed the chevaliers he brought upon them, but there was one thing that was clear: the Wolf of Crestwood only targeted the intruders and their sympathizers.

He was not noble; though they needed a hero, few had any illusions that he would fulfill that need. He did not give his money to the people, and though he dressed lavishly, a lace cravat bunched at his throat and a wine red coat protecting him from the chill, he did not seem to spend much money on himself, either. In fact, beyond the shock of white hair he concealed under an Orlesian-cocked hat and his elven ears, there was not much to distinguish him by at all.

If you paid attention, though, the inn just outside of Crestwood had mended their long broken fence, and though they were frequented by notoriously clumsy drunkards, they had plenty of dishes with which to serve them. 

It was fortunate, then, that no one did.

No, despite the fact that the food was warm, the rooms were nice, and the drinks continued to pour, there was really only one reason to visit the inn just outside of Crestwood, and that reason was the landlord's daughter.

Lila was a night-haired woman of twenty and three, but though she had plenty of offers from starry-eyed lads, she had never courted a single one.

They had called her a witch for a time after that, but her father's stone-eyed glare and her gentle decency had dissuaded all but the most foul-hearted. There was still speculation, of course; it was not unheard of for a woman to lie with another, but it was not even granted the facsimile of acceptance that we have today. To be different, to be sullied in the time of the Orlesians, was to invite death.

The men did not want to hear it, though, so Lila of Crestwood's only inn was safe.

For all their gossip and nosiness, though, they did not fathom even an inkling of the truth. Lila could not give her heart away when it already belonged to another. That in itself wasn't hard to imagine, but word of her sweetheart would have rocked these townsfolk to their core. 

Lila loved the Wolf of Crestwood.

A chestnut stallion was the most familiar guest in their stables, though he only docked by night, and the brown doeskin of Fenrir's boots had never seen the inside of the building.

No, he watched for the achingly slow opening of the west-facing window, the only bedroom on the first floor, and the sweet sight that awaited him there.

Lila would be there, lit only by the moon, a flickering candle, and the heat of his admiration. Sometimes she would be working, waiting for his appearance, a coat he had torn mended with expert precision in her capable hands. She wrote him letters sometimes, sewn in the linings and stitched against his soul.

By the light of the stars that held secret their bond, she'd press a good luck kiss to his lips and a charm to his heart.

"Watch for me by the moonlight," he would whisper into the fall of her hair, and them, with one last longing glance, he'd ride away up the western road, leaving Lila only the promise of his return and the memory of tomorrow to stave off her worry.

"I'll be back before you know I'm gone."

 

 


	3. one kiss, my bonny sweetheart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fenris if danarius hadn't happened....soft boy

_He rose right up in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand // but she loosened her hair in the casement! his face burnt like a brand // as the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast // he kissed its waves in the moonlight_

* * *

"One kiss to remember you by, my love," the Wolf of Crestwood crooned on a stormy Haring night. Lila had just opened her window, and the brazenness of his words made her flush a cherry red, though she arched a brow in question

"Are my words not comfort and reminder enough?" she teased, loving the way he colored under the pale light of the moon. "I did not take you for such a selfish man."

"Then I would call you a fool were it not a deterrent to my goal," he laughed, and his lady ached to see him so happy, a beacon in a dark place. "I'm a thief and a scoundrel, love. Greed comes as a part of the package."

"And mending my fences and buying me thread?"

"Also selfish." The smile he gifted her was not wild in his usual way, the glimmer of an unsheathed sword, but untamed in its freedom, a man laid bare before her. "If I buy you pretty things to keep you happy, I can hopefully persuade you to remain bereft of your senses."

"The only senseless thing about my admiration is that I find myself too infatuated to speak against your moronic jokes."

"You wound me, dearest. Still, I must know; could I still hope to beg a kiss off of you? I'm after a prize tonight."

"Let me guess, you'll say it's for luck and deem me cruel if I refuse you."

"I could never," he gasped, and though he affected shock, she knew his words to be the unmitigated truth.

Lila softened then, leaning out the window. His eyes caught the loosened curls that had fallen from her plait, and his face burned redder than any flame.

"Are you quite certain you can handle a kiss, good sir?" she teased. "You seen quite peaked."

"I've been  _stabbed_ before," Fenrir drawled by way of reply.

"Oh, and did you act like a blushing girl asking her beloved for a Satinalia dance then, too?"

He sputtered, and just as her lips curved into a victory smile, he pounced.

He was a hard man, the Wolf of Crestwood, all scars and hard lines, and he kissed her with the fierce abandon lent from brushing death more times than could be counted. Still, he was gentle with her, insistent but open, and it was only when her arms came around him that he unleashed any of the desperate hunger within.

What started as an impassioned groan quickly became an animal snarl, and it was only the shaking laughter of his Lila that caused him to back away.

"I'm glad my ardor amuses you," he pouted, face twisted in a mockery of a scowl. Lila caught her breath enough to attempt an apology, but Fenrir furrowed his eyebrows comically, and she was lost to a fit of giggles once more.

"Forgive me, Fen," she wheezed, her head tipping back from the sill as she tried to quiet herself. "You were just...so excitable, and it was a nice enough kiss, but the window frame was digging into me the whole time."

"Then perhaps i should come to you," he said, and without further ado, the Wolf of Crestwood vaulted into his lover's room.

"Fenrir!" she gasped, though she made no move to eject him. "What are you thinking?  _Are_ you thinking?"

He merely grinned and tipped his insufferable hat. "No barriers now, are there?"

"You. Are. Ridiculous. What if someone comes?"

"Then I shall leap out the window and make my daring escape. I shall be quite dashing, don't you think? Like a rogue from a faerie tale." His deadpan expression only served as a contrast, and Lila found she could not even pretend at outrage.

"Fine, you roustabout, but only this once. Don't go getting the idea you can come in whenever you'd like."

"Your wish is my command," Fenrir said, so softly that an onlooker would scarcely believe him to be the demon haunting the emperor's army, and guided her back to the comfort of her bed, a tender smile adorning his face as he leaned in for another kiss.

* * *

Lila and her father were not the only members of her family to reside in the inn. Her uncle, Gavin, was a cruel and calculating man, and despite what the other two thought, he had been the driving source of the inn's patrons. He knew many of the local men, being a heavy drinker and an even heavier gambler, and had been the source of all positive rumors about Lila's chastity.

He held no particular love for the girl; she was far too demure and soft-hearted to be of much use to him, but he knew the men of Crestwood, and the infinitely small chance that any of them had to deflower the pretty barmaid made their purses loose.

If word got out that she were  _not_ pure, not after what he had seen, he would be ruined.

As the Wolf of Crestwood leapt upon his horse, rapier hilt twinkling in the night, Gavin knew only one thing.

That bastard had to go.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: @bokutoma // @chellick
> 
> twitter: @deracinatin
> 
> yeye fuck gamlen  
> also hhhhh i'm emo about soft fenris help


	4. they drank his ale instead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the chevaliers have set their sights on someone

  _He did not come at the dawning; he did not come at noon // and out of the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon // when the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor // a red-coat troop came marching // marching, marching // King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door_

* * *

The road was a lonely thing, a poor friend in the darkness of the Thedosian sky no matter where you hailed from.

Fereldens were no exception; in fact, they may have had it the worst of all. Robbers stalked through cobblestones much like the wolves did the brush on the sides of the path, and the empire's men proudly marched in unison, eager to pick up any who dared cross their path.

It was a good thing that Fenrir was the most dangerous predator hunting tonight.

* * *

Serving men, Lila thought, was quite like taking care of wild dogs.

They barked, swore, and panted, and unlike the highly intelligent mabari, didn't have a single coherent thought in their heads.

 _Smart enough not to speak,_ her father had always said.

They were no end of irritation, and the way they ate would make the most savage Avvar mother beg them to use their manners. Still, despite the lewd words, the groping, and the occasional proposal, indecent or otherwise, they were not the worst customers she could serve.

No, that dubious honor belonged solely to the chevaliers of the Orlesian Empire.

They held all the disgusting habits of any other bar patron, taking their liberties with drinks and people alike. Unlike the others, though, they thought themselves superior to the dog lords they drank with; every man thought themselves entitled to her, but the chevaliers thought the same base, animal urge was somehow more refined when from an Orlesian tongue.

In comparison, Lila far preferred the blunt straightforwardness of her countrymen. They, at least, did not pretend to be better than they were.

They, at least, knew themselves to be monsters.

When the coats of the Orlesian army were visible against the jewel-pink bed of the sky, she wanted to run.

* * *

Considering the stakes, the Crestwood-stationed chevaliers really ought to have been doing a better job guarding their camp. It had been all too easy to make off with their most gilded sword, gold, and valuable mementos, each easily far more expensive than the average townsperson could even dream of having.

It made Fenrir sick.

If they felt so secure in their riches that they were this stupid, though...well, he wasn't sick enough to not take advantage.

Idly, he wondered if this would be a sufficient sum to meet Lila with, money he could use to spring the surprise he had been saving for her.

He wondered if this would be enough to marry her.

They had not spoken much of her father, he and his Lila, other than her mentioning that she was just like him. Because of this, he knew the man must be kind and handsome, and the inn rumors told of his fierce protectiveness he felt toward his daughter.

That was the part he was worried about.

He was an elf, and a Ferelden one at that. If Lila wanted him to disclose his identity, he would, but he couldn't imagine that would endear him to the man whose approval he required any further. He didn't have much leeway as it was; no, the only way he could be a worthy match was if he acquired money.

Once, he had been the sort to rob because it was necessary, because it was the only way he could survive. He lived bread crust to overdone pieces of chicken, never quite full but not quite dead either. Then, he had done it because it was all he knew. Nobody, regardless of their origins, was much in the business of hiring unskilled elves. It had turned him cruel, made him steal to watch the shock on his targets's faces.

That was when he had met Lila.

Her inn had been the perfect stakeout point; all eyes were blurred by drink and focused solely on the doors to the kitchens. He had pickpocketed two men and marked a third before she even entered.

As cliche as it was, the Maker stopped time to observe her.

She had deftly woven around each man who grabbed for her, often setting things down before they even needed to be asked for. Her smile had not dropped once, though he had seen the discomfort that tugged at it, and if there was such a thing as a saint, he would have labeled her such.

Finally, it had been his turn, and though he had probably imagined it, her smile seemed a little wider when it came to him.

She had asked what he wanted, and when he made neither a lewd comment nor an unwanted advance, she had seemed even sunnier, though he had not known such a thing to be possible.

He had stayed longer than he usually would have that night, telling himself that it was to out-wait the drunks, who would be terribly easy prey. Really, though, he had been entranced into conversation with Lila, who was as witty as she was beautiful. She had told him what an odd thing he was, and he had laughed, raw and something akin to genuine, asking her if she had never seen an elf before.

"Don't be silly," she had said, the yellow gold of her eyes warm and inviting. "You just...treat me like a person, and not a prize or a conquest."

And that had been the funniest part of all, hadn't it? That he was a liar and a thief and a scoundrel, and yet he was, by her estimation, the best man she had served all night.

He had stupidly, desperately, hoped that she might want to be his, in that moment. If she would continue to see something in him that he hadn't concerned himself with for years.

Against all logic, she had.

* * *

The first sign that something was wrong was the smile that haunted Gavin's face. He was never one to find joy in anything, and even Lila's father had asked what put him in such great spirits.

He had said that Orlesian purses meant Orlesian gold, but she knew better. The look in his eyes told her that a plot was brewing.

The second was that she did not recognize the chevaliers's masks.

Typically, each unit had their own theme, and would only update the mask, not the theme itself. These men wore the masks of varghests, and she did not know them.

When they burst into the inn, it was not with the rowdiness of men settling in for the night.

No, the third and most obvious sign was the hungry look of the leader when her eyes met his. In that moment, he was not just a man, but a hunter whose trap had been laid to perfection.

"Ah," said the leader. "Zere she ees."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter: @deracinatin
> 
> tumblr: @chellick // @bokutoma


	5. hell at one dark window

_They had bound a musket beside her // with the barrel beneath her breast // "now keep good watch" and they kissed her // she heard the dead man say // "look for me by the moonlight"_

* * *

"She eez quite pretty,  _non?_ " the chevalier asked his fellows as Lila stood rooted to the ground with fear. "Ze Wolf 'as chosen 'is bitch nicely."

So Fenrir was what they were after.

"What nonsense is all this?" her father snarled.

"Your darling daughter eez a traitor to ze crown of Orlais," another man jeered, the varghest of his mask forged into a vicious grin. "But you can make amends by 'elping us catch ze bastard who's been 'aving 'er."

"I'm not quite sure what you mean, my lord," she said, her voice carefully neutral. 

"But of course she would say zat,  _non?_ " the leader spoke again, talking to her father while, she suspected, looking directly at her. "Eet  _eez_ 'er life on ze line."

Though she saw the veins in her father's neck standing prominently, Maddox pasted the best approximation of a smile he could to his face. "My lords, surely you must have some evidence of this? We are well-respected members of the community, and I cannot imagine you would bring such accusations against us without such proof."

The chevalier laughed. 'Proof? I need no such thing. Perhaps you should look to your 'ouse'old, my friend, since it was zey who informed me."

_Gavin._

The lines around Maddox's eyes seemed to deepen, but he knew there was nothing he could do, save pray that either his brother-in-law was acting the liar again, or that the Wolf of Crestwood would not show. "I see. I was quite unaware."

"You ought to pay more attention to ze whores under your roof!" called the grinning varghest.

"Now, now, there ees no call to be rude to our host." Still, Lila could hear the wicked grin in his voice. "Show us to your room, girl. We have a wolf to catch."

The walk to her room, by no means noteworthy on a regular day, became a funereal march she knew she could not escape from. There were only three things that still burned in the emptiness of her heart: profound sorrow, burning hatred, and the deep, overwhelming, fruitless hope that Fenrir would not return to her.

When they reached her room, it took hardly a second before one of the bastard chevaliers shoved her toward the foot of her bed, procuring a length of rope from Maker only knew where and binding her to a post.

"Keep good watch,  _cherie,_ " the grinning varghest said, and kissed her as he finished the knot. "It will be the last time you see your Wolf of Crestwood."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter: @ghostheirin
> 
> tumblr: @chellick // @bokutoma


	6. death at one dark window

_She twisted her hands behind her, but all the knots held good! // she writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood! // they stretched and strained in the darkness and the hours crawled by like years! // till, now, on the stroke of midnight // cold on the stroke of midnight // the tip of one finger touched it! the trigger at least was hers!_

* * *

The moons hung swollen in the sky as the chevaliers set their trap. Lila could not see much, but from the little she could gather, every west facing window had one of the varghests poised, ready to leap out and strike. In the stables, more awaited, and they hid among the brush leading into town as well, just in case he decided to sleep elsewhere.

 _Keep him safe,_ she begged the Maker.  _He is a good man. He loves me very much. I will make sure he stops thieving if you just spare him tonight._

If He heard her, He gave no sign.

"When ees ze bastard supposed to show?" the grinning varghest grumbled from the casement. He and the leader had elected to be the ones who stayed with her, claiming they did not know what she might try. 

Personally, Lila thought they wanted to make certain she saw Fenrir fall.

"Be patient," the leader said, tutting in that insufferable way she had only ever heard from nosy old women. "He will come soon enough. He would not linger with such a beauty waiting for him,  _non?_ "

The two men snickered, and her frown deepened. The manner in which they spoke...even the Wolf of Crestwood had more class.

 _Andraste, have mercy on Your children,_ she prayed.  _You fought for the lowest of us, the helpless and the weary. Take me if You must, let me burn as You did, but You in Your majesty must know this isn't right._

Still, there was no answer.

She began to fidget, fingers straining for the knot that bound her arms together, but though she could just brush the frayed ends, she couldn't quite get a grip.

A tendency to give in the face of struggle was not what had sustained her relationship with Fenrir, however, and as the men chattered, occasionally marking their words with lewd sexuality and graphic accounts of the violence they would wreak upon her lover, she restrained the tears that threatened to fall with the abrasion of the rope on her wrists as she squirmed.

* * *

A chevalier had escorted Maddox and Gavin into town, presumably to prevent them from attempting to interfere. Maddox would have liked to say he was smarter than that, but the way those asses had handled his daughter, the things they had said...he didn't care how many of them there were, armed and trained. He would have killed them all, or died trying.

Still, this was hardly the smartest move they could have made; he had been born in Crestwood, and had hardly left it his entire life. He knew the people, even if he didn't talk to them regularly, and he knew they loved his daughter. Most of all, they hated Orlais with a passion.

The chevaliers with the varghests on their masks would not be suffered without a price.

Before that, though, he had a brother-in-law to confront.

When the chevalier no longer cared what they did, Maddox halted, causing Gavin to turn, and decked him.

"Fucking  _Void!_ " Gavin swore as he tumbled to the ground. "What was that for, you crazy fucking son of a whore?"

"Don't think I've forgotten what you did." Maddox crouched down to look the other in the eye. "Said it was a member of  _my_ Makerdamned household that talked, and I know that it sure as shit wasn't me."

"Your slut of a daughter-"

He didn't even think about restraining himself as he moved to punch Gavin again, relishing the  _crack_ as the bastard's nose broke. "You were saying?"

"What was I supposed to do?" Gavin coughed, blood spattering across himself. "Your girl is the only reason we have any damn patrons. That thief was spoiling our profits and was probably taking our stuff on the side! Did you want her to end up diseased and alone?"

Maddox felt rage flood him again, and he shook his brother-in-law, the man’s head thumping against the ground. “It’s _my_ inn, _my_ daughter. You’re a washed-up drunk that’s only remained in my home out of respect for my wife, Maker rest her soul, but I see now I should have kicked your useless ass out long ago.”

Gavin laughed bitterly, but there was nothing Maddox wanted to hear from him any further. He left the cocksucker in the dirt and stalled away.

He had a daughter to save.

* * *

No matter how she twisted and turned, Lila could not seem to free her hands, and all she had to show for it was the blood that soaked the rope encircling her wrists.

In the distance, she heard it, loud enough to reverberate through her skull like a thousand explosions: hoofbeats. It was Fenrir, she knew, and how the leader and the other didn’t attend astounded her. Panic clawed at her throat, and she would have done anything to save him.

 _Anything_?

Heat bloomed in her fingers, long numb from the tightness of her bonds.

_Tot-a-lot. Tot-a-lot._

_Anything._

She screamed, so loud it seemed to amplify in the small space, and the world burned.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter @kingblaiddyd


	7. a bunch of lace at his throat

_He turned. He spurred to the west; he did not know who stood // bowed, with her head o’er the musket, drenched with her own blood! // Not till the dawn he heard it, and his face grew gray to hear // how Bess the landlord’s daughter // the landlord’s black-eyed daughter // had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there_

* * *

As his horse trotted along the darkened lane, there was only one thing on Fenrir’s mind.

Lila.

He had ridden hard to a shop not far from where he had struck, one known for its loyalty to Ferelden over all, including safety - known, of course, only to the right parties, but known all the same. They had traded without any fuss, with only the eyes of appraisers and salesman, no judgement, and the fortune he had walked away with...Well, it was enough to make any man change his mind.

The air felt tense and thick around him, choked with anticipation. Mercy even bucked beneath him before he regained control, so prevalent was the feeling. Something was going to happen tonight; he hoped it would be for the best.

Mercy’s steps sounded in the fog, explosions against the night.

The thread was about to snap. Something tugged at his mind, so faint he could not heed its call.

In the distance, the inn loomed.

He nudged his mount faster, eager to see his love, but Mercy would not listen, instead slowing to a near stop.

“Blast it,” he muttered, eyes tracing the silhouette of the building. “Move, you old nag.”

Mercy bucked once more, and before his eyes, the inn exploded into flame.

“ _Lila_!” he shouted, but the rustle of the bushes betrayed the chevaliers who waited there, and with a curse, he had no choice but to ride away.

* * *

Everything around her was burning.

There was a mouth at her neck, claws in her chest, and a whisper in her ear. “Kill them,” it hissed, and she would have obeyed even if not compelled.

The leader shrank back in fear, clutching his Chantry amulet with the fear of a dying man - which, she supposed, he was. “Maleficar!” he cried, and she, Lila and yet not, knew this to be true even if she had never once known the lyrium-sour taste of magic before. “Look upon the Maker and be afraid!”

She laughed in a voice that was hers and yet deeper, raw and ominous and layered with the abyssal tones of the damned. “Your Maker does not scare me,” she growled. The rope burned off of her, and she stood even as she herself caught ablaze. “The only terror here is me, the only power mine.”

The grinning varghest thrust the point of his blade at her; it slowed until she caught it in one bare hand, heedless of the blood that flowed from the new wound. For the first time, she saw her wrists, encircled by ragged gouges from her futile struggles. Her mouth widened into a feral grin that should not have been possible on a human visage.

The smell of burning flesh caught her nose. It was time to end this.

“Maker, have mercy on your children,” the leader muttered, dropping to his knees.

How powerless they were.

As she touched a blazing hand to each man’s forehead, they collapsed into ash, and she howled.

* * *

Fenrir would have ridden over the man in the road, so panicked was he, but when he saw that face, the one so hauntingly similar to that of his love, he could not help but urge Mercy to a stop.

“Pardon me, sir,” he said, his voice thick with panic and grief. “But would you happen to be the innkeeper?”

The man looked at him with piercing yellow eyes, heavy with suspicion. “Is there a reason you’re asking after him, Wolf?”

Fenrir tensed. “I...His daughter...”

The man’s whole demeanor changed, straightening, a fire burning in his eyed as his fists clenched. “What about her?”

“The inn...” he said, and tasting the fear in his voice was easily done. “It is ablaze, and chevaliers crawl through the roads like vermin.”

The man straightened, and electricity seemed to sing through him. “Ablaze?” He swore prolifically. “My daughter is there! Damned Orlesians only have her to catch you!”

Were it not for Mercy beneath him, he would not have been able to keep afloat. The world blurred as he reached into the pockets of his claret velvet coat, pulling a heavy sack from the ties of his belt. His hands shook as he tossed it to sweet Lila’s father, and he was no longer a beast, but a wolf deranged and driven mad.

“What is this?” Maddox asked, but by the time he looked up from the heavy druffalo skin, the Wolf of Crestwood was gone.

Fenrir rode hard and fast, but the emptiness in his heart told him what his mind refused to believe; she was gone. Still, there was a fury in him that could not be quelled at the thought of his love, dying alone but for the thought of him.

Horror crept into him and seized him as a fist around his heart. What reason would the chevaliers have to kill her?

Absolutely none.

That was the most jarring thing of all, that she must have fought to protect him, and in the struggle, been consumed by a fire that never should have been set.

It was his fault.

With a cry that would have put a dragon to shame, he plunged into the road with more fierceness of spirit than ever before. The chevaliers, inky black wraiths in the smoke, circled, but he only had eyes for the two charred skeletons that laid in the ashes of Lila’s room and the scorched mark where her bed had been.

Two nights ago, he had lain with Lila, dreamed of a future where he would no longer have to run, hide, or steal.

Two nights ago, Lila had been alive.

The battle craze that fell over him was like no other in his history. He fell three chevaliers from atop Mercy before they cut her down at the knee, and when he stumbled from her bleeding form, he ran one more through before they got him, the Wolf of Crestwood put down at last.

As he lay in a puddle of blood, drenched in sweat and loss and the foulness of his own approaching death, he thought he saw his love, smiling gently and beckoning him through a window to the blinding light beyond.


	8. a dark red love knot

_Still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees // when the moon is a ghostly galleon, tossed upon the cloudy seas // when the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor // the highwayman comes riding // riding, riding // the highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn door_

* * *

They say that on nights when the road looks like the ribbon of a Rivaini’s necklace, when all is dark and still but for the swirling void of the wind and the moons, there’s an inn in Crestwood that is haunted by the ghosts of the past.

Hoofbeats sound where there is no mount to be found, and fog drifts in even when it has not rained. The half-skeleton corpse of a proud horse travels along the Imperial Highways, and its rider, smudged in the mist, is impossible to fathom but for the blood red of his coat and the unusual shock of white hair beneath his hat.

Where the old inn was once built an age before, a new one sits, and if you watch the north facing window, a ghostly specter will appear, claw marks gouging her chest.

They will embrace, the dead rider and his ghostly lover, and they will talk, though none can understand they say. She will invite him in, but he always seems to refuse.

Perhaps one day he will accept, and the Wolf of Crestwood and the innkeep’s daughter can finally rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter: @kingblaiddyd


End file.
